In the United States, the Department of Defense is responsible for nearly 380,000 facilities estimated at a plant replacement value of $435 billion. These facilities play an important role in support of the military's mission. The sustainment, restoration, modernization (SRM) and eventual demolition and reconstruction of this infrastructure portfolio are of great interest to facility planners and policy makers.
Building investments are made and buildings are constructed to support some specified mission or purpose. The building design process yields the optimal building location, materials, and configuration to best serve that purpose. As the building operates in service and ages, building materials, components, and systems deteriorate, leading to some less than optimal ability to support its mission. This loss is determined through a condition assessment process and may be measured by a condition index, CI, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,544 B2, Knowledge-Based Condition Survey Inspection (KBCSI) Framework and Procedure, to Uzarski et al., 6 Jun. 2006, incorporated herein by reference. Building performance, i.e., ability to support a specified mission, is also impacted by general obsolescence, e.g., inability to support a new mission.
This obsolescence may be due to change in user requirements, technological obsolescence and changes in building codes and regulations. For example, as user requirements change or the mission changes, as is likely to happen during the lifespan of a permanent building, the “functional capability” of the building to support a current mission has decreased some amount. This loss may be determined objectively and quantitatively through a functionality assessment and measured by a functionality index (FI). Building condition is improved through repair, restoration, or both. However, a gain in functionality generally requires facility modernization.
“Building Performance” is measured at a specific point in time and defined as the “in service” suitability of a building for a specified mission. Among other indicators, it refers to how well, how safe, and how efficient a building supports a given mission. A building's “performance state” may be defined to be dependent on two attributes of the building, the “physical condition state” and the “functionality state.”
The physical condition state provides a measure of the “general health” of the building. Physical deterioration of the building due to normal aging, excessive or abusive use, or poor maintenance reduces ability to support its initially established mission. For example, a leaking roof reduces the building's ability to provide a comfortable, safe environment. Research has focused on quantifying the condition state of a building in a consistent, objective, and repeatable fashion. In the BUILDER® Engineering Management System (EMS) the physical condition state is quantified using a Condition Index (CI).
The functionality state relates to the facility's ability to support a specific mission, whether it be the designed mission, a present mission or a proposed mission. It is an estimate of the capability of a facility or building to support performance of a current mission in the absence of physical deterioration. An impact to functionality, e.g., loss or degradation due to an inefficient building layout, improper choice of materials or equipment, building code violations, and the like, affects mission performance even though the condition of the building is new. Changes to functionality may arise independently after the building has been put in service, e.g., changes in user requirements, building codes, materials, technology, and the like. For example, an existing maintenance facility without the proper size and configuration to handle current military equipment has reduced capability to support a mission of vehicle maintenance. Impact to functionality may be qualitatively described by identifying those constraints inherent in the building design that lead to less than optimal mission support when compared to a new “purpose-built” building designed to support that specified mission at the highest level.
Conventionally, facility or building assessments or evaluations are performed to determine the scope and estimate of required SRM work. These conventionally undertaken assessments involve the identification and recording of deficiencies or issues that lead to a less than optimal facility. Issues or deficiencies may be defined with respect to both condition and functionality. During an assessment process based on identifying issues or deficiencies, an assessor or evaluator identifies what building deficiencies or issues are to be recorded and may categorize, i.e., prioritize, identified issues. Further, an estimator may determine the cost of corrective action for each prioritized issue or deficiency, if any. At no point during this conventional procedure is any metric produced which quantitatively and objectively describes the functional capability of the building to support a given mission.
Some metrics developed from the manipulation of “backlog data,” are based on the cost of corrective action. The use of backlog data does not provide an acceptable basis for describing mission readiness. In addition, resources spent estimating the cost of corrective action for a functional issue or deficiency is wasted if the SRM budget does not allow the corrective action to be performed. This leads to an assessment process that may not yield the expected results in terms of the resources that have been expended to complete the assessment. Thus, what is needed is a process that addresses data requirements in a cost effective and timely manner to quantify the capability of a facility to support a specific mission at any point in the lifecycle of a facility, including design, construction, utilization and modification.